Thursday, June 14, 2012

June 12th was the World Day Against Child Labor and according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) 215 million children worldwide are involved in child labor.

Research by the ILO has found a decrease in the number of child workers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, approximately 5.7 million children (and estimated one in ten minors) throughout the region work. Most of these children work in agriculture yet a few of them work in risky occupations such as fireworks manufacturing and garbage dumps.

The following video via Journeyman Pictures examines the difficulties of several Nicaraguan children working in mining quarries and as vendors in markets. The film highlights the push by some authorities to convince child laborers to give up their work and instead go to school. Yet these kids tend to continue working in order to provide for the basic needs of their impoverished family or uncooperative school officials prevent them:

In the next few days we will look at child labor in other parts of the Americas including minors who are exploited sexually or become child soldiers.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

* Cuba: The U.S. State Department and several Cuban-American legislators are concerned over the supposed detainment and “physical assault” of Cuban authorities against dissident activist Jorge Luis García "Antúnez".

(Update: Cuban police freed García after he spent four days in a local jail. He remarked to the EFE news agency that police "violently" arrested him on charges of "spreading false news, resistance, disobedience and assault." García accused police of beating and insulting him during part of his detention).

* Central America: According to the Salvadoran press two of the country’s largest street gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, might be increasing their presence in nearby Belize.

* Haiti: At least eleven Haitian migrants died on Sunday after the boat they were traveling in capsized off the Bahamian coast.

* Mexico: President Felipe Calderon said that European plans to help out beleaguered Spanish banks should be “firmed up quickly.”

* Latin America: The U.S. Labor Department signed agreements with several countries including Peru, Ecuador and Honduras aimed at protecting immigrants from those nations who work in the U.S.

* Cuba: The U.S. Supreme Court refused to publicly comment as to why the high court rejected appeals by seven Guantanamo prison detainees.

Video Source – YouTube via UNESOC (“Haitian migrants toil under the hot sun on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. But the majority of them are stateless; even those who are born here, have neither a Haitian nor Dominican passport.”)